Hollywood’s image of Boyle Heights is generally limited to violence

Filmmakers who grew up in Boyle Heights have tried to show other sides of the neighborhood, but they say that Hollywood’s depiction of their home town plays on negative stereotypes of inner city Latinos. In movies like Colors (1988), American Me (1992), and Blood In, Blood Out (1993), the neighborhood is hostage to gang violence that flares up randomly. Josefina López wrote the play and movie Real Women Have Curves (2002) to portray “the beauty [of Boyle Heights] for people that didn’t grow up here and don’t get to see.” In that movie, she says the characters are more like those she knew growing up, not the caricatures of gang leaders and drug dealers.